Evacuation STILL Ongoing At NYU Hospital [Photos]

Twelve hours after the backup generator went out at NYU's Langone Hospital on 30th and First Avenue, staff are still evacuation patients.

We spoke with Anthony Singh, Anandil Raj and Wayne McKay, three maintenance staff who'd been up the whole night assisting doctors and nurses evacuate patients, and they said they themselves were frightened.

They were on a food break just before 7 pm when they heard on the radio that the cellar was flooded.

They went down and found themselves knee-deep in water.

Then the power went out.

Immediately a backup generator came on.

But not for long.

"After two minutes, it went out," Raj said.

The building was plunged into near darkness, with the exception of some small emergency lights.

The hospital's been operating that way ever since.

The big dilemma, they said, was what to do with ICU paitents.

They tried to keep them there as long as possible, but eventually had to send them off.

Another issue was that the area just north of the hospital was completely flooded — impassible.

This created a huge bottleneck as ambulances were forced to turn back down onto First Avenue, which is one way uptown.

When we got there this morning, they were still evacuating ambulatory patients.

The pace has slowed considerably — in about half an hour we only saw two ambulances leave.

But a phalanx remains at the ready to transport patients.

Rob Wile for Business InsiderA couple enter an ambulance carrying their infant.

Rob Wile for Business InsiderThis phonebooth was temporarily blocking First Avenue.